On Houses

The 4 houses I’ve owned (sequentially) over the past 40 years reflect the change in my needs over the years and lessons learned from owning previous houses.

The first house was purchased in an area where we’d lived in an apartment for several years. It was convenient to my work and my husband’s grad school location. We chose the particular house because it had 4 bedrooms rather than 3 and it had a country kitchen. Two lessons learned: painting the outside of a house is hard work even if it is half brick and insulation matters (that house was hard to keep cool in summer and warm in the winter).

The second house was selected in a week-long trip halfway across the country. We triangulated work locations and bought in a neighborhood that made our commutes about equal (but in opposite directions). We liked the house because it had a country in kitchen, big trees in the yard, and extra insulation has been added by the previous owners. Some lessons learned: miles and commute time often don’t correlate, older houses tend to have problems (the air conditioner compressor quit two weeks after we moved in), and maintenance (sometimes expensive) is required (we only lived there for 3 years but had to have the outside painted and the roof replaced).

The third house was selected to resolve the too-long commute problem. Again we triangulated and this time it worked better. We chose the house because it had 4 bedrooms - 3 quite large - and large closets. The house had a dining room which we never used because the kitchen included a breakfast area….and it was a newer house. The lessons learned: triangulating does not work as well as having one parent with almost no commute when there is a young child, low ceilings make a house seem claustrophobic no matter how good its layout is, and steep driveways are treacherous in bad weather (my car turned sideways in the icy driveway).

The fourth house, where we are now, was chosen because it was so full of light and it had a covered/screened deck. The neighborhood was nestled across from farms and was full of children close to my daughter’s age. And we found that the public schools were excellent once we settled in (lesson learned - we should have checked that before we moved…we were lucky).  The lessons I have learned/am learning from this house: don’t wait around to make small renovations and the way sound carries in a house may be important for a multi-generational household. This house has lots of room but creaks in the floor boards and noise carrying through ductwork is significant; we aren’t a multi-generational household yet but I find myself glad that it won’t happen in this house! In addition - while I like high ceilings overall, I have come to realize how much space is wasted by a two story foyer and den.  Long term I want to minimize stairs too.

All those lessons will be applied to the selection of the fifth house….sometime in the next few years.

Lull in the Flower Beds

The very last iris is blooming in our flowerbeds. We have a sea of green that is studded with potential:

There lilies are sending up their bud stalks (not all of them yet - but every day I notice more emerging above the dense core of leaves). That part of the flower beds will be full of yellow and orange by the time the hot weather is consistent.

The blazing stars are clustered around the bird bath. They’ll be almost the same color as the irises as some point.

The dahlias are purple and pink and white…..I don’t dig them up in the fall and our winters are cold enough to challenge their survival. Most of the plants from last year seem to have survived the winter.

I’ll miss the color at our front door for the length of time it takes the new flowers to begin their season.  Right now I have to simply love the green!

Building a Garden Border

Rather than carrying all the self-pruned branches from our oak back to the woods, I decided to use the longer ones to form a border for my Chaos Garden. I used some gold garden stakes to make brackets about every 3 feet and then wove the sticks through them. I got more enthusiastic and retrieved some sticks from the branch pile I’d made in the woods from previous years’ trimming.

I was thrilled when one grew shelf fungus within weeks of becoming part of the garden border.

The border grew dramatically with the plum and oak trimmings of the past week. I left the branches on the limbs but bent them down into the other branches - increasing the connectedness of the branches so that the brackets were not the only elements holding the whole together. Some parts are not high enough that I will have to wait before I add anything more. Of course - this is a garden border that will naturally decay. Will it simply settle slowly so that I can refresh it from the top? I’ll enjoy the month/years of observing the garden border.

More about the Chaos Garden in another post…..

Tree Trimming

A recent rain weighed down the plum tree branches enough to convince me it was time to trim the tree. I got out a step stool, the saw, and the long handled pruners. I cut off low branches and ones that were growing more horizontal that vertical. Afterwards I took a closer look at the layers within the branches - the delicate color changes from the bark to the sapwood (cambium, xylem), and then the heartwood.

Next up on my ‘to trim’ list was the oak. Oaks do a lot of self-pruning so the main work I do on the treat the edge of our yard near the street is focused on the lower branches when they grow low enough to brush the tops of vehicles in the street or our car as we pull into the driveway. It was harder work than the plum tree; the branches were larger and a bit higher too. There were many tiny acorns on the branches.

I also found an oak marble - almost a ‘glow in the dark’ green.

I cut open the shell and found the insect larvae suspended inside the sphere.

The branches were quite lot and I wove them into the brush ‘fence’ around my chaos garden….more about that in another post.

Memories of my Mother-in-Law

Even with the passage of over 20 years since her death - I still think of my mother-in-law frequently. She would have been 79 years old today. The things she left behind when she died suddenly in her mid-50s are still some of the handiest things in my kitchen - reminders of her best wishes for me from the beginning of my relationship with her son.

When I use one of her wooden spoons or the mini-food processor or the flower shaped plastic for opening too-tight lids, I often think of the years she missed….events I would have enjoyed sharing with her: the activities of my daughter’s growing up…the career highs and lows….the experience of becoming post-career.

One of the knives she bought - serrated and perfect for slicing tomatoes - broke recently and I felt like it was a small part of her that was gone rather than a tool. The wooden handle on her breadknife cracked but I still keep it in the drawer.

In retrospect, there was so much about her that I did not know; there were some discoveries after she died. Not knowing doesn’t matter now.

The memories evoked by the items I use so often in the kitchen are fond ones.

The Grand Cleanout - May

It is hard to get motivated to reduce the ‘stuff’ in the house without some forcing function. Moving - downsizing into a house that fits the change in our needs (down to two people) - would be the ultimate forcing function but we are not quite to that point. It’s clear that it would take a lot of work because we have been expanding to the available space in this house for almost 20 years. So - I am going to create my own forcing function my starting a monthly ‘grand cleanout’ post. This is a strategy that worked very well in my work life: establish a goal, create a plan to accomplish it, and then monitor progress.

The goal in this case is:

To be ‘move ready’ by June 2015 (i.e. a year from now).

By the time the grand cleanout post for June comes, I’ll:

• Develop some month by month objectives
• Donate the ‘stuff’ I’ve already got piled in the unused dining room (what a mess!) - clearing the area so that I can stage new items that will exit the house in similar fashion. 

And now I've created my own 'forcing function' for the Grand Cleanout!

Ten Days of Little Celebrations - May 2014

Noticing something worth celebration each day is an easy thing for me to do. The habit of writing it down reminds me to be grateful for these and a myriad of other things in my life. This month has been full of ‘little celebrations;’ here are my top 10 for May 2014.

Daughter’s visit. What’s not to like about having a daughter around! It was a very short visit - every part was a celebration of family.

Jack-in-the-Pulpits. This was the first year I found them blooming at the forest’s edge in our yard. These plants always seem special to me because I saw them only in pictures until I moved to the east coast.

Getting seedlings planted. I got all the seedlings planted and celebrated they were all thriving (until the hail battered a couple to oblivion last week. Still - enough are growing rapidly in there pots on the deck that I am pleased with the results of my efforts to get them started early.

Wall of green. Every my I celebrate the return of the wall of green view from my office window. The tulip poplar and maple trees are through the spring greens and looking as lush always get in summer. The sycamore that I see from my kitchen window is a little later unfurling; it’s leaves will continue getting larger and larger all during the summer.

Blueberries and yogurt. It is my favorite mini-meal in May and June….a way to celebration almost every day.

Driving neighbors. I thoroughly enjoy volunteering to drive senior citizens to their appointments in my community. What a joy it is to have them stay in the community where they have lived for years!

Hiking in the forest. Spring is one of my favorite times to hike: wildflowers, not a lot of biting insects, water gurgling. It was wonderful to be outdoors after the cold and wet!

Phone conversations. I find myself celebrating the normal ebb and flow of conversation with people far away. Sometimes it is the ordinary that turns out to be a treasure.

Birdbath and iris. Every time I go by the front door of my house (either outside or inside) I glance and the view and celebrate!

Chives. Here’s to celebrating plants that just come up every year on their own….and taste wonderful in salads!

Seasonal Foods - May

I am celebrating having the first things from my Chaos Garden to add to salads: chives and lemon balm. These two are so well established that they come up and grow abundantly every year. They are best early in the year when they are at their most tender. I like the added color of the purple chives flowers in salads.

I photographed the first blooming of dandelion flowers but didn’t cut any for salads for some reason; I’ll make an effort for the second blooms since the yellow petals are also nice additions. I’ve never built up any enthusiasm for the leaves (too bitter for me) but maybe that is because I don’t catch them earlier enough.

A nearby farm advertised pick-your-own strawberries this weekend but I missed the action; there were a huge number of cars parked along the roadside near the farm when I went out for other errands. Everybody likes strawberries and this is their season in Maryland!

Blueberries are becoming plentiful too. I buy them at the Farmer’s Market or the grocery store. I like them with yogurt on top. If it’s a hot day, I freeze the blueberries and make a smoothie (so far we haven’t had a really hot day, but I’m sure we will before the season is done.

The Joy of Irises at the Front Door

The irises that are blooming at our front door were planted originally in a bed where they did not do well. Each year there were fewer that bloomed so last year I dug up the rhizomes and moved them to the space on either side of our front porch so I could see them from windows on either side of the front door. They sent up green leaves last year after they were moved but there were not many blooms. But this spring……most of the clumps of leaves produced stalks with 3 or more buds!

I like the color and height of the flowers around the bird bath. The flowers look frilly and delicate compared to the toughness of the plant’s leaves...and the hardness of the glass bowl. They hold up reasonably well to most rains.

Yesterday was an exception. We had quite a rain storm - with pea sized hail mixed with the raindrops that battered all the tender plants including the iris flowers. I was glad to have captured the images of the irises before it came! Now the flowers look bedraggled; one of the large buds was completely detached from its stalk. Hopefully the buds still on the stalks will open into fresh new blooms in a day or two and prolong the season of irises at our front door.

On Time

One of the changes between the rhythm of career and post-career life is the perception of time. Even before I entered the post-career phase of my life, I was aware that I was using the clock to control too much of the way I was living; on the weekend I would intentionally not wear a watch - seeking to loosen the rigor of waking to an alarm, eating when it was the right time rather than when I was hungry, and using the time to decide I was taking too much doing what I was doing.

Now - I go to sleep when I am tired and wake up 7-8 hours later - usually to bird song; it is refreshing to wake up in sync with the day beginning for the world outdoors and at the point of lightest sleep; what a joy to slid gently from sleep to wakefulness. It happens about the same time every day; the little bit of variation is very comfortable. It is so much better without a jarring sound that happened too frequently at the wrong part of my sleep cycle.

These days when I have an appointment at a certain time, I often set a timer rather than rely on my keeping track of what time it is. That is quite a change from the attention to time I had during my career when there were so many elements that were linked to a time synchronized with actions of other people. I wore a watch and often had a clock in my office too. Reminders came up on the computer. I even had a clock in my home office; I didn’t hang it again after we had the house painted.

There are times that I have to check the date and time because I lose track. A lot of what I enjoy doing now has more of a daily or weekly rhythm rather than being pegged to a more exact time. For example - I do grocery shopping once a week and a blog post daily. Now that I have my garden started, there are some daily garden chores as well.

Historically, life 300 years ago was a lot like this for everyone. There were church bells that caused some synchronization of activity….but otherwise the rhythm of days (rather than hours) was dominant. It was important to predict the seasonal changes so that crops could be planted at the right time. The implication is that the attention to time in modern culture has increased the frequency that we think in short time (hourly) frames. We start training early in our lives with bells and topic changes happening quite frequently throughout our school years.

By creating habits that are not so focused on the exact time, I am now teaching myself the older rhythm….savoring the rhythms of the planet.

Robins’ Nests

Almost every year a robin nests on the cross beam that supports our deck. Our two cats look down through the deck boards from the half of the deck that is covered - with keen interest but unable to disturb the nest at all.

This year we have 5 nests! Maybe the second and fourth one look a little scruffy - might be left over from last year. But that still leaves 3 that look freshly constructed. The fifth one is the one is on the corner of the deck nearest the garden…so the robin frequently leaves in a hurry and noisy complaint whenever I am gardening.

We are quite a few robins in our neighborhood. The trees in the yards are now 20+ years old and the trees in the forest that extended down to the river behind the neighborhood has trees that are older still. The robins seem to increase in number every year but this is the first time I’ve seen the increase so tangibly: more nests means more robins in the next generation!

My Deck Garden - May 2014

I am enlarging my deck garden this year and done some planting in small pots indoors to be ready.  It was finally warm enough here late last week for them to all go outdoors. I’ve planted combinations of plants in larger pots - one that will spill out over the side and one that will grow upward….or one that makes a large root and one that grows tall. I’m not sure it will work or not, but at least the deck will look interesting this summer and I’ll do a monthly post about the deck garden until the fall. I supplied the plants I had started from seed with potted plants bought at Home Depot once they were sale priced. The mint that wintered on the deck has already sprouted so I simply added something else to those pots. I have pots or troughs of:

Sweet potato and bell pepper

Watermelon and tomato

Zucchini and cilantro

Tomato and spaghetti squash

Cucumber and cilantro

Tomato and cucumber

Spaghetti squash and mint (in the old ‘turtle’ sandbox)

Tomato and carrots (in a repurposed bin that cat litter came in)

Cantaloupe and cilantro

I just realized that I probably should plant some basil somewhere.

Jack-in-the-Pulpits

The Jack-in-the-Pulpits seem to be everywhere during the first weeks of May in our area of Maryland this year. They’ve been every place where there is thick leaf litter and not too much other forest undergrowth. I seem to notice more of the plants in recent years….either I am happening on where they grow more frequently, I am more observant, or (maybe) they are more numerous in recent years in this area.

I saw them at Brookside Gardens on 5/3 (the gardeners seem to plant them in clumps),

The Brighton Dam Azalea Garden on 5/4,

The forest behind my house on 5/6 (where I also noticed some garlic mustard plants which I immediately pulled since often those invasive plants make it impossible for the native forest undergrowth to flourish), and

The Howard County Conservancy’s Mt. Pleasant on 5/9 (unfortunately I didn’t have a camera with me on that hike!).

Clothes for Warmer Days

It’s the time of year to put away heavy sweaters and pants. It isn’t quite warm enough for summer clothes yet but the winter clothes are always too warm by the afternoon. So - it is time to go with lighter layers for warmer days: T- shirts, lightweight slacks, long sleeved cottons, lightweight cardigans. I have an extra closet for the out of season clothes and yesterday was my ‘stage 1’ change for warmer days. I’ll have a ‘stage 2’ when the days get really hot (summer) and I put away slacks altogether.

As I move clothes around - the items I haven’t worn at all during the past season are put in a bag to donate. The clothes that are for the upcoming season are evaluated. Since I have become more rigorous during the end of season move, the clothes I am getting out are usually all worth keeping. But is there a hole in the wardrobe that I need to fill via shopping or repurposing? I don’t think so at this point. If anything, I have too many clothes!

About 10 years ago, I decided that black (rather than black or brown or navy blue) would be my ‘neutral’ color. It turned out to be a great strategy. Almost all my pants are black and they go with all my tops.  Most of the tops are pastel or bright colors although I have a few black tops because I like bright jackets too (in every season except summer). I will need to make a trip to the dry cleaners for a few winter jackets as soon as I am sure I will not be wearing them again this year.

My fashion season leans classical which means that I buy clothes that will be part of my wardroom until they wear out completely rather than for a single year.  I do enjoy the occasional splurge toward the trendy even though I wear them long after the season they were ‘in’ - sparkles on a top, lattice at the neckline, palazzo pants.

At one time I decided that I would get rid of my scarves but now I am glad I didn’t. They are a warming addition to a winter outfit (that I enjoyed a lot this past season) and I like them during other seasons as belts, to add color to a straw hat, or tied around an otherwise dull purse.

Over the years - I’ve come to the conclusion that in the spectrum between extreme comfort and extreme fashion, I always be on the comfort end of the spectrum. The only area I am still challenged is shoes. I know that the longer one wears shoes with pointy toes and high heels, the more deformed (and painful) the foot becomes. The problem is to find shoes that are comfortable and look good with certain types of clothes, particularly dresses. I’ll have to deal with the shoe issue more during the summer when dresses are by far the coolest choice for the hot days; stay tuned for my upcoming post on summer clothes!

Gleanings of the Week Ending April 5, 2014

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

Bridging Two Worlds - Lynne Quarmby is a cell biologist….that paints. See some of her art work here.

Several interesting paper sculpture posts: From Zim and Zou (my favorite is the bird in the first image), Massive Paper Installation Feels like You’re Walking Inside a 3D Painting and Bird Sculptures

Wish you could fertilize crops with pee? Urine luck - Article from Grist. It caused me to wonder about 1) how sustainable thinking looks for solutions that are better for the planet….but may be less expensive too, 2) how often sustainable also means ‘closed loop’ (i.e. there are no bad bi-products that build up as ‘waste’) and 3) infrastructure changes that will enable sustainability (in this case -bathrooms and sewer systems could be enablers, but different than they are today).

Noninvasive colorectal cancer screening tool shows unprecedented detection rates - Hooray! It would be great if this or some other non-invasive test became the diagnostic of choice rather than colonoscopy! No one likes the colonoscopy or the prep it requires. Surely the non-invasive test will be less expensive too.

Loblolly pine genome is largest ever sequenced: Seven times bigger than the human genome - This article includes a good explanation of the computational challenges of genomics.

Enormous Climbable Structure - Intriguing design. The sight for the developer is here. There are quite a few of them installed in children’s museums in the US and they all look like lots of fun.

Helpful Infographic Illustrates Polite Dining Around the World - Learn about the cultural nuances of dining in other countries.

Americans using more energy - Not a good trend….Are we using more as the economy improves?

Fair bosses pay the price of burnout - Procedural fairness (structured and rule bound) is beneficial to the organization and employees….but it is hard to sustain without feeling the strain. Should leadership/management training be updated to at least acknowledge that strain and suggest ways to cope with it? Maybe sabbaticals (The Working Vacation) should become more common in non-university organizations.

Daylight saving impacts timing of heart attacks - Should people with heart conditions ‘spring forward’ more gradually?

Garden Dreaming - March 2014

Spring is getting a late start this year….more time for garden dreaming.

• The racks of seed packets are hard to pass by. I bought colorful beans and carrots…and decided to start chives and cilantro indoors immediately.
• I’m always on the lookout for items that can be turned into ‘pots’ for the deck. The big plastic containers from cat litter are my latest target. We buy the big jugs of cat litter so I’ll have to cut off the top but that means I can make the ‘pot’ the depth I want. The maximum depth would be enough to grow sweet potatoes or carrots on the deck!
• It seems like freebie seed packets are coming from all directions. So far I’ve collected sunflowers and marigolds….cucumbers and tomatoes!
• It is pretty obvious that garden success will require some control of the deer browsing in my garden area (fortunately the deck is not accessible already). I’m going to try a ‘liquid fence’ repellent for my garden (and right away from my ornamental shrubs and bulbs coming up….the deer are starving….eating everything right now).
• I had to cut the sweet potato back in the pot I have growing indoors….and it is rooting in a glass of water. Now that it is putting out fresh leaves I probably will need to plant it soon but I need a pot of it (may be the first thing planted in an empty cat litter jug will be the sweet potato)!
• I’m thinking about what will go in the garden plot. It gets a reasonable amount of sun on one side although a young sycamore is shading part of it late in the day. The veggies have priority and I’ll try to start some indoors to give them a head start. The sunflower may be too large for my garden so I’m contemplating planting them along the sunny side of the house - which is not even a flower bed right now.
•  I enjoyed the cardinal flowers and zinnias in the pots on the deck last summer. This year I am getting more organized and thinking about combinations in the larger pots; the thriller - filler - spiller idea appeals to me. The first and last on the ‘dreaming’ list below is already started - assuming the cardinal flower survived the winter in its pot and the pot I have growing inside now makes the transition to outdoors after the last frost.

Winter’s Grip Waning? - March 2014

We have had some bitterly cold weather this March. It snowed last week and the temperatures were in the teens. The deer are reduced to eating the old leaves from the pile we made at the edge of the forest. This is a hungry time for the deer.

There was a hawk yesterday at the edge of the forest. I noticed it when it moved and then flew to the branches of a nearby tree. I didn’t actually see it catch anything but later that same day when I ventured out I found a substantial clump of feathers beside our house.

The ground is spongy from the recent thaw and the hyacinth bulbs are just beginning to show. They are at least a week or two behind where they were last year at this time.

As I walked around the house, the tulip poplar still looked very much as it has all winter

But the maple had noticeably enlarged buds. I’ll have to watch carefully to get a series of macro shots as the maple blooms and the leaves unfurl.

Discovering Brussels Sprouts

I have rediscovered Brussels sprouts recently - having not eaten them for over 40 years (and my mother forced the issue). They were boiled and I thought they were bland and slimy. But now I’ve discovered they are great cooked just about any other way! They are generally milder than cabbage but have many of the nutrients and their size is definitely a plus. It is so easy to rinse a handful of them, cut off the dried up end and take off the wilted outer leaves…..and then they are ready for all kinds of recipes.

These miniature cabbages can be cut in long wedges and roasted (coated with olive oil and non-salt seasoning).

They can be cut in wedges or chopped to add to soups.

They are excellent raw. I like them diced with apples, raisins soaked in apricot brandy, and pecans. Orange marmalade and olive oil makes an excellent dressing.

I bought a small bag of them at the grocery store and discovering how easy it is to add them to meals. I’ll probably avoid large cabbages from now on.

Snowflakes - March 2014

The conditions for taking snowflake pictures were relatively good earlier this week: it was well below freezing, most of the time it was calm, and there were bands of snow that resulted in a variety of snowflake types. I was better prepared than previous snows as well. I had left the loupes and plates to catch the snowflakes under a towel on our covered deck. So the equipment was already cold and I had a towel to brush off the plates so that I could catch flakes for multiple sessions. I had decided to use a green glass plate steady of the red one I’d used in February…..anticipating St. Patrick’s Day!

The first time I went out, the flakes were very small and included a lot of dual flakes - connected by a prism axel (as in the images below). I particularly like the one that the reflection from the center makes it glow from within.

The second and third time I ventured out, the flakes were bigger and more complex. I had plenty of time to look around the flakes on the plate because the temperature was in the low twenties….nothing was melting! Although my technique has improved over this winter, the weather was a positive factor in capturing the March snowflake images.

Previous snowflake posts: 

• January 2014
• February 2014

Ten Days of Little Celebrations - February 2014

Over a year ago I posted about finding something to celebrate each day. It’s an easy thing for me to do and the habit of writing it down reminds me to be grateful for these and a myriad of other things in my life. This month has been full of ‘little celebrations;’ here are my top 10 for February 2014. I’ve grouped my little celebration into 4 groups this month: weather, food, family, and loupe photography.

Weather

A warm day - In February - the occasional warm day is indeed something to celebrate!

Snow and more snow - I like snow days too, particularly when I don’t have to leave the house. I enjoyed hot tea with milk….and worked out a plan to photograph snowflakes. I didn’t even mind a certain amount of shoveling of snow!

Birds - The changes in weather result in more birds be out and about when the weather is a little improved. We’ve seen juncos, cardinals, robins, chickadees and heard the crows!

Food

Graham Cracker Crumb Cake - Someone made a graham cracker crumb cake as part of the refreshments for a lecture I attended….and I liked it so well I looked for a recipe via the Internet…and made one myself. Yummy! I have always liked graham crackers and this is just one other form to enjoy.

Edamame - What a great way to increase the protein in salads! My grocery store had them already shelled!

Family

Phone calls - I celebrate the ease we can keep in touch with family that lives far away. It is not as good as living in close proximity…..but it enables us to sustain relationships until we can be together again.

Anticipating visits - There are two opportunities to see far flung family members - in March and May - that I am already anticipating…and celebrating.

Loupe photography

Snowflakes - I was surprised at how effective the loupe magnification is for snowflake photography. It is quite an adventure to discover for myself how unique and beautiful they are.

Buds - Buds are going to be a longer term fascination as they unfurl into leaves and flowers. I celebrated that I thought of the project early enough to get the bud before the unfurling!

Broccoli - I knew it was good to eat but the loupe gave me more reason to celebrate broccoli’s form and color.